Anyone seen $18bn that was misplaced?
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/06/201161962910765678....
Middle East
Missing Iraq cash 'as high as $18bn'
Iraq's parliament speaker tells Al Jazeera unaccounted reconstruction money is three times the reported $6.6bn.
Last Modified: 19 Jun 2011 07:08
Osama al-Nujaifi, the Iraqi parliament speaker, has told Al Jazeera that the amount of Iraqi money unaccounted for by the US is $18.7bn - three times more than the reported $6.6bn.
Just before departing for a visit to the US, al-Nujaifi said that he has received a report this week based on information from US and Iraqi auditors that the amount of money withdrawn from a fund from Iraqi oil proceeds, but unaccounted for, is much more than the $6.6bn reported missing last week.
"There is a lot of money missing during the first American administration of Iraqi money in the first year of occupation.
"Iraq's development fund has lost around $18bn of Iraqi money in these operations - their location is unknown. Also missing are the documents of expenditure.
"I think it will be discussed soon. There should be an answer to where has Iraqi money gone."
The Bush administration flew in a total of $20bn in cash into the country in 2004. This was money that had come from Iraqi oil sales, surplus funds from the UN oil-for-food programme and seized Iraqi assets.
Officials in Iraq were supposed to give out the money to Iraqi ministries and US contractors, intended for the reconstruction of the country.
'No trace'
The Los Angeles Times reported last week that Iraqi officials argue that the US government was supposed to safeguard the stash under a 2004 legal agreement it signed with Iraq, hence making Washington responsible for the cash that has disappeared.
Ghassan Atiyyah, of the Iraq Foundation for Development and Democracy, discusses Iraq's missing billions
Pentagon officials have contended for the last six years that they could account for the money if given enough time to track down the records.
The US has audited the money three times, but has still not been able to say exactly where it went.
Al Jazeera's Iraq correspondent, Jane Arraf, reporting from Baghdad, said: "It's an absolutely astonishing figure - this goes back to 2003 and 2004.
"There is going to be a fairly wide net cast - some of them [involved in mishandling of this money] are thought to be US officials, but many here believe that it is the Iraqis who have filled their pockets.
"Safeguarding the money was up to the Americans ... after the invasion, provisional authority here was run by the American military.
"Piles and piles of shrink-wrapped US dollars came here, but the cash coming in is not the important part - it is what happened to it after [it got here].
"There are no documents to indicate who got it, where it was spent and what was ever built from it."
Source: Al Jazeera
you are being very unkind to the american gangsters. Dont be-little stealing and theft by attributing this to "human" error.
Must be hidden away at one of those swiss banks
you joke like that....
I used to work for my brother in law at his private school and transport thousands of Rands in cash home on a daily basis from school fees paid by the students which he would hide in his house while waiting to go to the bank. He never had a safe at home, so used to just hide it in random places.
When he and my sister decided to renovate the house, they pulled out one of the old AC units and being a hands on guy with his building he was around while they were doing it... thank goodness, cause out of the old AC unit, came a shower of money he'd forgotten about... on searching other places he found more he'd missed.
Love his explanations to his accountant - sorry, my wife used the money.... he was too embarressed to tell the accountant he forgot where he put it.
It's probably between the couch cushions along with the car keys. Have you checked there?